Sequestered, Week 310 (CCCX)

Happy September!

Thursday Poem - Aunt Leaf

Needing one, I invented her—
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,
and whisper in a language only the two of us knew
the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel
cheerful as birds
out of the dusty town and into the trees
where she would change us both into something quicker—
two foxes with black feet,
two snakes green as ribbons,
two shimmering fish—and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door
with the rest of my family,
who were kind, but solid as wood
and rarely wandered. While she,
old twist of feathers and birch bark,
would walk in circles wide as rain and then
float back

scattering the rags of twilight
on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;

or she'd hang in the milky moonlight
burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,
this old woman made out of leaves.

Mary Oliver, from Twelve Moons

Awakening

The eastern Ontario highlands are awakening, wildflowers, ferns and tiny saplings coming up through the bleached and tattered fallen leaves of last autumn. Every sunny alcove in the woods seems to be tenanted by hopeful sprigs of green.

The situation makes one feel like dancing, if it can be done without tumbling ass over teakettle into a prickly thicket along the trail. An exuberant lurching about is probably the best we can do, but we (Beau and I) just have to express our gratitude to the Old Wild Mother for giving us such a sublime morning in May.

Three cheers for Mama. She certainly knows how to put on a show.

Sequestered, Week 293 (CCXCIII)

Birch Mother in the Wind

Paper birch (Betula papyrifera)

also called White birch or Canoe birch

Here we are on the cusp between winter and springtime, weary of ice and snowdrifts, craving light and warmth. There is still a lot of snow about, and the weather is cold, icy winds scouring the bare trees and making the branches ring like old iron bells. Perhaps that is to be expected, for springtime is a puckish wight this far north. After making a brief appearance, she often disappears for several weeks and doesn't show up again until the end of March or the beginning of April.

For all that, March days have a wonderful way of quieting one's thoughts and breathing rhythms, bringing her back to a still and reflective space in the heart of the living world. The Old Wild Mother (Earth) is haggard and tattered, but she takes us in and holds us close. She shelters us and soothes us. She comforts us. 

I sat on a log in the woods a few days ago, watching as scraps of birch bark fluttered back and forth in the north wind. When my breath slowed and my mind became still, the lines etched in the tree's paper were words written in a language I could almost understand. When the morning sun slipped out from behind the clouds, rays of sunlight passed through the blowing endments and turned them golden and translucent, for all the world like elemental stained glass.

When I touched the old tree in greeting, my fingers came away with a dry springtime sweetness on them that lingered for hours. I tucked a thin folio of bark in the pocket of my parka and inhaled its wild fragrance all the way home.

Rumors of Spring

Happy March!

For a few days this week, weather in the village was mild, and the towering snowdrifts everywhere subsided a bit. Birds sang lightheartedly in the park, and maples in the garden sprouted tiny red buds. For a while we dared to entertain the fragile hope that springtime was on its way and warmer times were not far off.

Alas, March roared in like a lion. Several inches of snow fell overnight, and we are back to heaving white stuff out of our way. I have already shoveled the deck, the stairs and a track around the garden for Beau, and I will tackle the front walk and driveway after my fingers have warmed up. First, a fine cup of hot, black coffee.

Weather Canada says the snow will stop in an hour or so, but I am not holding my breath. There are snow clouds up there from one side of the sky to the other, and a nasty north wind is rampaging through the village. When the sun rises tomorrow morning, the temperature will be in the minus thirties (Celsius) with windchill factored into the equation. Old Man Winter is not done with us yet. Harumph.

Wandering Eye and Dancing Leaf

Little things leave me feeling restless in January. I meander through stacks of gardening catalogues, plotting another heritage rose or three, new plots of herbs and heirloom veggies. Hours are spent in the kitchen summoning old Helios with cilantro, fragrant olive oils and recipes straight from Tuscany. Candles are lit, and endless pots of tea are brewed, sunlight dancing in every earthenware mug.

When playing with with filters, apertures and shutter speeds, I am entranced (and sometimes irritated) by the surprising transformations brought about by my madcap gypsy tinkerings. Beau and I haunt the woods, peering into trees and searching for a leaf somewhere, even a single bare leaf. We scan evening skies, desperately hoping to see the moon, and we calculate the weeks remaining until the geese, the great herons and the loons come home again.

It may not seem like it, but change is already on its way. The great horned owls who make their homes on the Two Hundred Acre Wood are refurbishing their nest in an old tree about a mile back in the forest, and they are getting ready to raise another comely brood. The female is the larger of the two owls, but her voice is higher, and when she and her mate call to each other in the woods, we know who is where. It delights me to think that it is all happening again. 

While Beau and I were out this morning, a single oak leaf was teased into flight by the north wind and came to rest in a corner of the garden. The pairing of golden leaf and bluesy snow was fetching stuff indeed. The leaf bore in its poignant simplicity an often and much needed reminder. This is the sisterhood of fur and feather, of snowbound earth and clouded sky, of wandering eye and dancing leaf. 

Suspended

Wordless Wednesday - Frosted

Wordless Wednesday - Upheld

A Later Shade of Gold

And so it goes... Many trees in the Lanark highlands have already lost their leaves and fallen asleep in their leaf-strewn alcoves, but others are just starting to turn now. Still others hold their turning in abeyance until late in November, and we are always happy to see them on our rambles.

Whole hillsides of birch and lacy tamarack turn gold, and their foliage dazzles the eyes. When I remember their splendor in the depths of winter, the memory will leave me close to tears and hankering for a long trip on foot into the forests north of Lake Superior. No, not this year, perhaps next year...

Butternut trees are always the first to drop their leaves, but the great oaks along the trail retain their bronzey leaves well into winter, and native beeches are still wearing a delightful coppery hue. One of our favorite old maples puts on a magnificent golden performance at this time of the year, and we attend her one woman show with pleasure. While in her clearing, we remember to say thanks for her efforts to brighten a subdued and rather monochromatic interval in the turning of the seasons.

It has been a windy autumn, and we were delighted to discover this week that the north wind has not plucked Maple's leaves and left her standing bare and forlorn on the hill with her sisters. It (the wind, that is) has been doing its best, but the tree is standing fast. I would be "over the moon" if I could photograph or paint something even the smallest scrip as grand and elemental and graceful as Maple is creating in her alcove. Every curve and branch and burnished dancing leaf is a wonder, and the blue sky is a perfect counterpoint.

Writing this, I remembered that as well as being an archaic word for a scrap or fraction of something, scrip also describes a small wallet or pouch carried by medieval pilgrims and seekers. That seems fitting for our journey into the woods and the breathless standing under Maple in all her golden glory. Oh, to belong to the woodland sisterhood of tree and leaf...

Thursday Poem - Song for Autumn

In the deep fall
    don't you imagine the leaves think how 

comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind? And don't you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,

    warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep

    inside their bodies? And don't you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

Mary Oliver, from Devotions

Turning, Slow and Easy

Thursday Poem - Aunt Leaf

Needing one, I invented her—
the great-great-aunt dark as hickory
called Shining-Leaf, or Drifting-Cloud
or The-Beauty-of-the-Night.

Dear aunt, I'd call into the leaves,
and she'd rise up, like an old log in a pool,

and whisper in a language only the two of us knew

the word that meant follow,

and we'd travel

cheerful as birds

out of the dusty town and into the trees

where she would change us into something quicker—

two foxes with black feet,

two snakes green as ribbons,

two shimmering fish—and all day we'd travel.

At day's end she'd leave me back at my own door

with the rest of my family,

who were kind, but solid as wood

and rarely wandered. While she,

old twist of feathers and birch bark,

would walk in circles wide as rain and then

float back

scattering the rags of twilight

on fluttering moth wings;

or she'd slouch from the barn like a gray opossum;
or she'd hang in the milky moonlight

burning like a medallion,

this bone dream, this friend I had to have,

this old woman made out of leaves.

Mary Oliver, (from Twelve Moons)

How the Trees Love Summer LIght

It was the first thing Beau and I noticed as we set off on a long walk this morning before the heat and humidity drove us indoors. Early light beamed through the high, gossamer heat haze as though old Helios was a lighthouse lamp broadcasting caution on a foggy autumn morning. The trees along our way looked as though they were lifting their branches in greeting to the rising sun, and perhaps they were.

Mourning doves cooed softly on the roof peak, a mid-to-late summer happening. Somewhere in the overstory, grosbeaks lifted their voices in song, and there was no mistaking it - the song was one of praise. The chorale rose into the sky and drifted back down again. A single cicada, the first of the season, primed his tymbals for a day of courting ballads from a perch in the oak tree in the front yard.

The fields along our way were tenanted by waving fronds of bugloss, buttercups, chicory, clover, hedge bindweed, goldenrod, meadow salsify, orange and yellow hawkweed, Queen Anne's lace, toadflax and vervain, to name just a few. There were young cottontail rabbits everywhere, and Beau pointed every one he saw.

Vines in the hedgerows are now sporting tiny, green grapes, and the two black walnut trees nearby are bending over under their abundant fruiting. I gathered three nuts and brought them home in my pocket, sniffing their fragrance all the way back. With a little luck, their perfume will linger in the house for a day or two. 

And so begins the crafting of our summer litany. As we go along, we gather birdsong and raspy insect ballads. We collect fruiting trees and vines, weeds and wildflowers, all the small, radiant happenings of a quiet summer morning, We thank Herself (the Old Wild Mother) for another fine season of light and wonder and rambling.

Tonight there will be fireflies. What a trip!

Froth and Fragrance

One day there are no leaves or flowers on village trees, and the next day the same trees have embraced the season, their voluptuous canopies alive with birds who dish out madrigals at sunrise and trip the light fantastic from branch to branch until the sun goes down. Their pleasure is obvious, and oh the fragrance, the splendid pinks!

Crabapple trees, flowering almonds and plums seem to leaf out and flower overnight, and wonder of wonders, they are alive with madly buzzing bumbles, honey bees and wasps. Dusted with pollen from stem to stern, the little dears are in constant motion, ecstatic to feel sunlight on their wings and forage for nectar on a balmy morning in May.

Here comes another fine summer of prowling about in gardens wild and domestic with camera and macro lens (or the camera on the Samsung S24), drinking in light and gathering nectars of my own. Now and then, I will put down my gear and dance with the joyous bumble girls. Ungainly creature that I am, I hope no one is watching.

Maple Budding Out

Friday Ramble - Written in the Trees

Paper birch, also called White birch and Canoe birch

(Betula papyrifera)

Here we are on the cusp between winter and springtime, weary of ice and snowdrifts, craving light and warmth. It is still below freezing much of the time, an icy wind scouring the bare trees and making the branches ring like old iron bells.

Perhaps that is to be expected, for springtime is a puckish wight this far north, and after making a brief appearance, she sometimes disappears for days and weeks at a time, fickle lass that she is.  After several days of milder weather, dwindling snowdrifts and happy pottering, temperatures plummeted yesterday, and there was a bitter north wind, but the sky was blue, and there was sunshine. Winter (alas) is not over yet.

For all the seasonal toing and froing, late winter days in the woods have a wonderful way of quieting one's thoughts and breathing patterns, bringing her back to a still and reflective space in the heart of the living world.

I sat on a log in the woods a few days ago, watching as tattered scraps of birch bark fluttered back and forth in the north wind. The lines etched in the tree's parchment were words written in a language I could almost understand when my breath slowed and my mind became still. When the morning sun slipped out from behind the clouds, rays of sunlight passed through the blowing strands and turned them golden and translucent, for all the world like elemental stained glass.

When I touched the old tree in greeting, my fingers came away with a dry springtime sweetness on them that lingered for hours. I tucked a thin folio of bark in the pocket of my parka and inhaled its fragrance all the way home.

Happy March, everyone! 

Friday Ramble - A Later Shade of Gold

And so it goes... Most of the trees in the eastern Ontario highlands have lost their leaves and fallen asleep in their leaf-strewn alcoves, but others hold their turning in abeyance until November, and we are always happy to see them on our rambles.

Whole hillsides of lacy tamarack have gone gold, and their foliage dazzles the eyes. From a distance, the trees look as if they are on fire, and the vision lingers. When I remember their splendor in the depths of winter, the memory will leave me close to tears and hankering for a trip on foot into the tamarack stands north of Lake Superior.

Butternut trees are always the first to drop their leaves, but the great oaks along the trail into the deep woods retain their bronzy leaves well into winter, and native beeches are still wearing a delightful coppery hue. One of our favorite old maples puts on a magnificent golden performance in November, and we attend her one woman show with pleasure. While in her clearing, we remember to say thanks to her for brightening a subdued and rather monochromatic interval in the turning of the seasons.

It has been a windy autumn, and we were delighted to discover a few days ago that the north wind has not left Maple standing bare and forlorn in her clearing. It (the wind, that is) has been doing its best to render her leafless, but the tree is standing fast and holding on to her golden leaves. I would be "over the moon" if I could photograph or paint something even the smallest scrip as grand and elemental and graceful as Maple is creating in her alcove. Every curve and branch and burnished dancing leaf is a wonder, and the blue sky is a perfect counterpoint. So is the snow that fell yesterday.

Writing this, I remembered that along with being an archaic name for a scrap or fragment of something, the word scrip also describes a satchel or pouch once carried by pilgrims and seekers, and that seems fitting for ardent wanderers like Beau and I. It is a fine old thing to belong to the fellowship of tree and leaf, particularly in late autumn.

Wordless Wednesday - Frosted